To all Moz Local fans in the UK, I'm excited to announce that your wait is over. As the sun rises "across the pond" this morning, Moz Local is officially live in the United Kingdom!
A bit of background
As many of you know, we released the US version of Moz Local in March 2014. After 12 months of terrific growth in the US, and a boatload of technical improvements and feature releases--especially for Enterprise customers--we released the Check Listing feature for a limited set of partner search engines and directories in the UK in April of this year.
Over 20,000 of you have checked your listings (or your clients' listings) in the last 3-1/2 months. Those lookups have helped us refine and improve the background technology immensely (more on that below). We've been just as eager to release the fully-featured product as you've been to use it, and the technical pieces have finally fallen into place for us to do so.
How does it work?
The concept is the same as the US version of Moz Local: show you how accurately and completely your business is listed on the most important local search platforms and directories, and optimize and perfect as many of those business listings as we can on your behalf.
For customers specifically looking for you, accurate business listings are obviously important. For customers who might not know about you yet, they're also among the most important factors for ranking in local searches on Google. Basically, the more times Google sees your name, address, phone, and website listed the same way on quality local websites, the more trust they have in your business, and the higher you're likely to rank.
Moz Local is designed to help on both these fronts.
To use the product, you simply need to type a name and postcode at moz.com/local. We'll then show you a list of the closest matching listings we found. We prioritize verified listing information that we find on Google or Facebook, and selecting one of those verified listings means we'll be able to distribute it on your behalf.
Clicking on a result brings you to a full details report for that listing. We'll show you how accurate and complete your listings are now, and where they could be after using our product.
For customers with hundreds or thousands of locations, bulk upload is also available using a modified version of your data from Google My Business--feel free to e-mail [email protected] for more details.
Where do we distribute your data?
We've prioritized the most important commercial sites in the UK local search ecosystem, and made them the centerpieces of Moz Local. We'll update your data directly on globally-important players Factual and Foursquare, and the UK-specific players CentralIndex, Thomson Local, and the Scoot network--which includes key directories like TouchLocal, The Independent, The Sun, The Mirror, The Daily Scotsman, and Wales Online.
We'll be adding two more major destinations shortly, and for those of you who sign up before that time, your listings will be automatically distributed to the additional destinations when the integrations are complete.
How much does it cost?
The cost per listing is £84/year, which includes distribution to the sites mentioned above with unlimited updates throughout the year, monitoring of your progress over time, geographically- focused reporting, and the ability to find and close duplicate listings right from your Moz Local dashboard--all the great upgrades that my colleague Noam Chitayat blogged about here.
What's next?
Well, as I mentioned just a couple paragraphs ago, we've got two additional destinations to which we'll be sending your data in very short order. Once those integrations are complete, we'll be just a few weeks away from releasing our biggest set of features since we launched. I look forward to sharing more about these features at BrightonSEO at the end of the summer!
For those of you around the world in Canada, Australia, and other countries, we know there's plenty of demand for Moz Local overseas, and we're working as quickly as we can to build additional relationships abroad. And to our friends in the UK, please let us know how we can continue to make the product even better!
David, this looks fantastic from a technological perspective, but I for one am thoroughly against Moz local moving into the UK market.
In my life thus far, I estimate that I've been to around 30 pubs named The Cricketers, all of which I have found by accident - usually by stumbling round a town centre when I have a spare 20 minutes between meetings or veering off a country lane when observing an unnecessarily large sign adorned with the words "cask ale" in an unreasonably large chalk-on-blackboard type face.
The idea that I might find these institutions more easily in another manner, possibly through the use of a smart phone, represents a threat to British national identity that I'm wholly uncomfortable with. I appreciate it may be an accepted practice to order your pointlessly overhopped IPAs via the medium of Snapchat in Portland, but I think it's wholly irresponsible for you to be encouraging British drinking institutions to join the 21st century.
If pubs have to have a website (and it's a big if), they should be built in front page, include Word Art where possible and be designed in such a way as to suggest the adoption of CSS has been reluctant. This https://www.cricketersarms.com/ is a fantastic example of a pub website done well. Such a website doesn't need to be optimised for Google Local, David. It shouldn't be corrupted by Google tag manager, it shouldn't have subfolders or pages and the robots.txt file should ideally by unwittingly blocking all crawlers to ensure that the only way people can find the pub is by actually crawling, when already slightly drunk, the way that God intended.
Saved as possibly my favorite Moz blog comment ever :)
"the only way people can find the pub is by actually crawling, when already slightly drunk, the way that God intended."
Phil is absolutely right. The correct way to find a new pub is to stumble upon it ...or via a pub crawl.
Correct markup on pub websites is as demonstrated by the aforementioned cricketersarms.com:
https://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd"><html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Welcome to the Cricketers Arms</title>
<meta name="Keywords" content="Pub, Restaurant, Wisborough, Green">
</head>
<frameset rows="100%">
<noframes>https://www.cricketersarms.info" src="https://www.cricketersarms.info" name="mainframe" frameborder="0" noresize="noresize" scrolling="auto">
Sorry, you don"t appear to have frame support. Go here instead - &amp;lt;a href="&amp;amp;lt;a href=" http:="" www.cricketersarms.info"=""&amp;gt;https://www.cricketersarms.info&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;">Welcome to the Cricketers Arms</a></noframes>
</frameset>
... where you'll be directed to their .info HTML site, which is probably assembled by friends of pub landlords for a princely sum of pints.
>> view-source:https://www.cricketersarms.info/
Hi Phil,
I thought this website had high standards and not offending other people was really important.
The end of your comment is REALLY offensive for someone that believes in God.
Regards,
Cornel
Hi Cornel,
Sorry, but I disagree. I think the tone of the comment is quite clearly genial and good-natured, and I doubt many people are offended. The reference to God is satirical nod to the idiom "God given right" which is often employed by both religious and non-religious people in the UK to justify behaviours others deem strange or objectionable. Just like "God bless", the phrase has a secular meaning as well as a religious one.
very true!
I don't get why you are against the idea of Moz local going in UK Phil. UK has been already exposed so much on internet since long ago.
I think it's mostly because I fear the internet has caused the decline of non-literal speech, and sadly it's now very hard to say anything nuanced online without it being taken completely literally by someone who hasn't really bothered to put the work in to read between the lines. Pubs are surely the bastion of good humour and satire, and I don't want this degradation of expression to extend to British watering holes.
I'd defiantly stay away from Weatherspoons then!.
just.....amazing article!!!! really thank you for sharing
Not meaning to come across as a money scrimper but why is the UK paying £84 per year opposed to the US paying $84 (£53.76)?
Alex,
The price for Moz Local reflects the cost of us being able to distribute listings for that region. As with most things in the UK, the cost of us distributing listings is more expensive in the UK than in the US. We believe and it's our intention going forward that Moz Local will be well worth the £84.
Thanks for the explanation.. makes sense.. £84 a year is still pretty good for the service :-)
Looks good. Can't wait to try it.
Looks Good, though a real shame you have decided to charge more to UK customers than the US.
Hey Populo, per Dudley's comment above, it's just a reflection of our higher distribution costs in the UK. When we release the additional sites in our network later this summer, we hope you find the slightly higher cost worth the price!
Oooohh - feels a bit like Christmas.. Can't wait to get stuck into this and see how it does.. Thanks David for the announcement. All we need now is someone with enough clout to get the UK Post Office to update their post code database! Ugh.. the delights of Hull.. oh hangon.. that's Kingston-Upon-Hull on Facebook.. oh no - that was when it was the East Riding of Yorkshire, before it was North Humberside, which got changed back (years ago).. :-)
Haha, very well said. I know exactly how you feel and I can definitely sympathise with the Hull situation.
It's great that Moz Local is coming to the UK. I've been using Moz Local since it was released last year, and it saves me so much time and makes my job so much easier.
Great work! Really excited to see this, and improvements to Moz Local!
Thanks to MOZ team.
Was waiting for this lunch since long time. You guys deserve thumbs up. Few main sites are missing. I am sure you guys are working on those to add them.
Congrats for achieving this milestone.
Congrats!! Good news to people in UK
Great News!
Do you know there's a glitch in the Inconstant side of things for some addresses. If the address has 1st or 22nd in it, Moz Local only sees the 1 Street Name not 1st Street Name, it therefore marks the 3rd party data as inconsistant.
Richard,
We typically handle these types of differences. However, there always seems to be some new edge case to investigate especially in new regions. Feel free to send examples to the Help team, and we'll investigate.
Good work, Congratulation....
Hey Mozzers,
I work for a chain of 77 gyms. Am I right is saying the cost of implementing MOZ Local would be £84 x 77 = £6,468?
Regards
Ben
Hi Ben, Your maths is correct! :)
Dudley
When is Moz Local coming to Germany ?
We're at the star of international expansion. With each country we add, there's a lot to learn so this will take time. However, we're always interested to hear who Local SEOs in different countries would like us to partner with when we do make it there.
Jolly Hockeysticks ! Been looking forward to this happening for ages, now where did my local clients go...
It seems best for people who lives in UK. I am hoping that Indian version might be come soon.
Very well David! Thanks!!
any plans for other countries
Hi David, This is fantastic news! I like the clean layout of the tool and how it breaks down all of the information. I think it's going to be great addition for the UK market. I also think the pricing is fair given the higher costs in the UK. Of course, I agree entirely with Phil about the best method for people to find pubs. The great website Phil linked isn't designed for people who are slightly drunk. It doesn't even appear to be designed for those who, after a night of drinking, are searching for a new pub the following day while hung over. It looks like it's more for non-locals planning a trip itinerary. The tiny font on the site's navigation bar certainly would not help anyone who is stumbling out of a pub or who is staring with bleary eyes at their mobile shortly after waking up. Perhaps you should use a different example in your post?
Todd, you're right -- next time I'll use a different category as a guinea pig :)
Good news.
I have never come to understand well the functioning of Local SEO.
Are there plans to launch Local Moz in the Spain?
A greeting.
I agree that there will no doubt be an increase in costs for the UK market, but it is still not a bad price for what you get. I am glad I only have a couple of profiles to look after until Ben Bendall :), but if it works for one ben, then maybe for all. I will look forward to giving it a trial in due course.
Great news! Thanks guys, been waiting for this :-)
its look gud, i will try definitely
Conagrats!
It says "check" instead of "cheque" on your dashboard and FAQ. Product seems good so far. I feel the instructions on the duplicate section a little baffling. Unsure on what to do at the moment, as it's not crystal clear if I remove the proposed duplicate, if that's removing it altogether (from Thomson) or if the system will automatically add my correct listing. Hmmmm.
I looked into your listing. There are indeed 3 duplicates which are not surfacing in your dashboard. When they do surface in the dashboard, you will see buttons to either ignore or close. If you'd like, you could open a Help ticket, and we can track resolving the issue.
Fantastic! I've been having a sneaky play with it for a month or two unaware it wasn't ready can't wait to give it a run for its money see how it copes!
Thanks Moz!
It seems best for people who lives in UK. I am hoping that Indian version might be come soon.
Good Luck, Great Opportunity for uk Audience
Do you plan to launch in Poland?
Nice Blog
Hi there,
Great news.! I am a bit disappointed to see the difference in cost compared to across the pond. Please can you clarify why the UK cost is higher than the U.S fee?
Thanks :)
Hi Islington_Counseling -- per Dudley's comment above, it's just a reflection of our higher distribution costs in the UK. When we release the additional sites in our network later this summer, we hope you find the slightly higher cost worth the price!
Dudley explains it in a previous comment at https://moz.com/blog/moz-local-uk#comment-343031. In short, the costs are higher in the UK.
Typical... used my free trial up last month and was disappointed with the local SEO UK support, go figure.
Hi David,
This looks cool - a good alternative to Bright Local. Looking forward to trying it for ourselves.
Laura
Simply amazing...I have no words to describe your work in this post.